Clyde Training Ships.

[charlie frame]

Can anyone please help with my search for information of the Clyde training ships. CUMBERLAND 1869 – 1889 and EMPRESS 1889 – 1923. moored between Gareloch and Helensburgh on the Clyde. Used for training wayward boys. either with records, photos, or stories. My grandfather served on one of these.

Many thanks CHICK.
<edited to remove unnessessary formatting (enormous text!) . LesleyB>

[LesleyB]

Hi Chick
Welcome to Talking Scot
There is some info here about the Cumberland and Empress:
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html ... hips.shtml

Amybe also try try contacting the Scottish Maritime Museaum at Irvine:
http://www.scottishmaritimemuseum.org/about.htm
as suggested below.

and from the BBC (an older, cached page):

Making History
The River Clyde training ships
At the turn of the twentieth century a couple of industrial training ships were moored on the River Clyde and became a familiar sight for Glaswegians. Derek Sharp from Tyne and Wear wrote to tell us that his great-grandfather James Nutt worked on these ships. Derek has a local notice about James Nutt's death in August 1923. It records that Mr Nutt was 'another of the fast disappearing heroes of the Crimean War'. He had spent his later years on the staff of the Clyde training ships, the Cumberland and the Empress. Derek asked for information about these two ships - where they came from, how they were used and what happened to them.
Jim Grant of the Scottish National Maritime Museum, which has its headquarters at Irvine in Ayrshire, gave the explanation.

The Cumberland was a two-deck 70-gun man o' war with three masts. She was built at Chatham dockyard and launched in 1861. In her prime she would have had 620 men on board. As a warship she was involved in the Crimean War, becoming an training ship after her war career was over. She was taken over by the Clyde Industrial Training Ship Association in 1869 and was used for training until she was destroyed by fire in 1889. It is thought that the fire (which happened when the ship was on the River Clyde) may have been caused by some of the young trainees. Trainees were a mixture of orphans and young lads sent by the courts. They were trained for the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy. Eventually, however, the Royal Navy decided to take only people without a criminal record so the training ships became more slanted towards the Merchant Navy.

The Cumberland was replaced by the Empress, which was slightly bigger. She was a wooden battleship originally known as HMS Revenge, launched in 1859, a vessel of 3318 tons, 245 feet long and with a complement of 860 men. The Revenge sailed as the Flagship of the Channel Fleet (1863), Second Flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet (1865), Coastguard at Pembroke (1866), Coastguard at Devonport (1869) and Flagship at Queenston (1873). When she joined the Clyde Industrial Training Ship Association she was renamed the Empress. She was eventually sold in 1923.

The routine on the training ships was rigorous, the day beginning at 6.00 a.m. Trainees were taught general education and all aspects of seamanship, including how to hoist the sails and handle the cannon. The officers who ran the ships were experts and firm disciplinarians. James Nutt (Derek Sharp's great-grandfather) is on record as a senior instructor and there are photographs of him in the Scottish Maritime Museum.


Place to visit

Scottish Maritime Museum
Harbourside, Irvine, Ayrshire KA12 8QE
Tel: 01294 278283. Fax: 01294 313211
E-mail: m@tildesley.fsbusiness.co.uk
Website: www.scottishmaritimemuseum.org


Please note: the BBC accepts no responsibility for the content of external websites.

Best wishes
Lesley

[Davie]

Hi Chick,
I know The "Cumberland" was based in Rhu, near Helensburgh.
Cumberand Terrace, still exists today.
If you check out the census returns you will find the names of the trainees and crew.

Lesley,
That was a good link to the Workhouses.
Is it on a "Sticky" here?
Awrabest
Davie

[LesleyB]

Hi Davie
Yes, I'd agree its a really good site for all poorhouse info - we do have a link to the main homepage for it in the "institutions" section:
http://talkingscot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3275

Best wishes
Lesley